Wednesday, October 4, 2023

The Lord of Tea

My Samurai finally have their Daimyo and his hatamoto/Close Protection Detail, in their distinctive red armour.

These started out in 2015 as a second 100 buntai for Ronin; 1x samurai on foot, 2x yaris, 1x bow, 1x teppo. I think repainting the sashimono, to tie them into the rest of the force, and then expanding them into a guard detachment, was the way to go.

But their colours are still heavily influenced by the Yorkshire Tea bonus pack.

Here is Yokshie Tokubetsu and his two banners.



Better view of the Ikko-Ikki sashimono, which he is riding triumphantly over. This was something I started with my Napoleonic commanders and quite enjoy. The plastic sashimono came from the Warlord sprue.


Gareth Beamish, who writes and wargames in feudal Japan a lot,  (read his Tenka Fubu blog here, he has a lot of good insights about how to portray samurai warfare in miniature) helped me with the inscription on the long banner. 

It is a variation on a historic banner which featured a slogan about baths, and should hopefully say something like: "there is no cold water in a hot bowl of tea." If it doesn't, then I blame my calligraphy. 

It's rather Zen, and speaks to me on several levels.

To protect all this, we've got a couple of Samurai with naginata. While painting their equipment, I noticed that this one's scabbard was broken off. So I repaired it with a piece of plastic fruit basket and a blob of cement.



Can't really notice the repair, can you?

They are backed up by a total of 4x ashigaru with yaris (2 new and 2 old), plus the samurai with katana I painted originally. He is now the ko-gashira.




Supporting them, I've expanded the missile capabilities. The group now has 4x teppo and 2x yumis (bows).






Now, I need to crack on with some more random figures that I'm adding to the ronin/ikko-ikki and see what I've got before I buy anything new.


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